POIC
From complex story to intuitive brand system.
For more than five decades, POIC has been committed to the success of underserved youth, adults, and families. They provide the highest quality services in Education, Employment & Training, Community Safety, and Family & Wellness throughout greater Portland.
- Strategy & Consulting
- Messaging
- Design & Production
- Awareness & Engagement
- Media Relations
We built a new brand for POIC that could better represent their organizational growth and expanded impact, while improving communications with internal stakeholders, community members, partners, and those they serve.
Initial Prospects
Before this project was a full organizational rebrand, it was a design and awareness project for their newest educational program: Rosemary Anderson Prep.
The program needed a distinctive visual identity, digital presence, and a wide range of collateral, as well as a mascot, uniforms, and gear for their new sports teams: the Rosemary Anderson Prep Prospects. Throughout the process, we collaborated with POIC’s amazing team, gaining insight into their wide-ranging work throughout the region. That collaboration and the work we produced for Rosemary Anderson Prep eventually became the foundation for a much larger initiative at POIC.
Strategy & Research
Inspired by the Rosemary Anderson Prep work, and looking to move the broader organization back to its original, simplified name, the POIC team asked us to take on a full organizational rebrand.
This name change also created an opportunity to rename and restructure various service areas that had formed organically over the years, which made our brand work much more than a visual exercise.
We met with people across the organization, ensuring that this new work—from visuals to messaging to user experience—was responsive to their diverse needs, opinions, and functions. In addition, we worked closely with their communications team on a plan to ensure that the changes were introduced internally and externally to the highest impact.
Messaging
After 57 years of growth, POIC wanted to clarify and refine the language they had around their history, their ongoing impact, and their groundbreaking programs.
Drawing on the knowledge gained from our research and information gathering across the organization, as well as our initial work on Rosemary Anderson Prep, we collaborated with their amazing communications team to craft updated messaging that would help propel POIC into their next chapter. That work drove the direction of a new website, helped clearly organize their service areas and programs, and raised awareness for the full, expanded launch of Rosemary Anderson Prep.
Visual Identity
With a clarified name, organizational structure, and messaging, POIC needed a refreshed and versatile visual identity to support it all.
Using the Rosemary Anderson Prep brand work as a foundation, we built a logo system that could clearly and intuitively define each of POIC’s service areas and programs without ever siloing them away from POIC’s broader work and impact. We updated their typography and color palette to better reflect the wide tonal range of storytelling inherent in their work and provided their team with an easy-to-use toolkit for all of their communication channels.
At launch, this work included a new set of POIC-branded gear for their team’s internal brand launch, updated business and marketing materials, a refreshed organizational newsletter, branded social media assets, and a fully reimagined website.
Website
POIC’s website was an opportunity to bring the new name, visual identity, and messaging to life. But most importantly, it was a chance to create an accessible and intuitive access point to POIC’s services.
From start to finish, the website was a collaborative process that incorporated feedback and insights from the organization’s board, leadership, communications team, and employees. This was instrumental in identifying pain points both internally and externally when it came to site organization, information flow, application and communication processes, job postings, and more.
Project Services
Strategy & Consulting
Interviews & Surveys
Research
Strategic partnerships
Audience Definition
Brand Audit
Design & Production
Visual Identity
Web Design & Development
Collateral & Environmental
Print & Publication
Special Projects & Campaigns
Illustration
Messaging
Core Brand Messaging
General Copywriting
Brand Identity & Voice
Awareness & Engagement
Outreach and Awareness Campaigns
Social Media strategy and management
Performance Analytics
Content production
Website maintenance
Newsletter and blog production
Community Partnerships & Collaborations
Media Relations
Target Media Development
Story & Angle Development
Press Relations & Outreach
Media Training & Consultation
Press Releases & POV Initiatives